G155: Red Sox 3, Blue Jays 0

Jacoby Ellsbury tripled to start the game and scored on Dustin Pedroia line drive out to left field. With one out in the third, Lyndon doubled and scored on David Ortiz's dong to left. Ellsbury collected another double in the fifth. Pedroia doubled (#52) in the eighth and stole his 19th base in 20 tries.

Dice kept his pitch count down after a long second inning: 19-26-11 9-16-13 15. He allowed only two hits -- both leadoff doubles (Vernon Wells in the second and Joe Inglett in the sixth).

Matsuzaka went to a three-ball count on only four of his 25 batters: Alex Rios in the first (F7), Lyle Overbay in the second (BB), Travis Snider in the fifth (BB), and Adam Lind in the seventh (K).

Richmond is a 29-year-old rookie from British Columbia. He has made three starts this season (16 innings, 23 hits, one walk, 13 strikeouts). He has not pitched for the Jays since August 10, though he did appear in a minor league game on August 29. He will be limited to 50-60 pitches.

This is the final road game of the regular season. Boston will finish with a losing record away from Fenway Park -- they are 38-42 right now, although they have outscored their opponents 381-357 on the road.

***

If the Red Sox win and the Yankees lose (in the final game at 33-year-old "Yankee Stadium II"), then New York will be officially eliminated from post-season play for the first time since 1993. In the YED contest, Jeff F, Jeff M, Aaron S and Tim J all picked 0921.

And at Stade Fasciste tonight, instead of the usual 400 security personnel, there will be 2,000 (including "city police officers, private security, federal authorities and members of the Bronx district attorney's office").

O'Brien said he can't recall those kinds of numbers with a pitcher. And with his record, it's strange not seeing him in the Cy Young discussion, but you look at the competition, and you look at his IP, etc.

I know Shea Stadium itself doesn't have anything that makes it crazy special, etc... but I don't see there being a 7 hour special for the closure of Shea Stadium. I don't hear anything about it, really.

But really, no matter what we think, it's b/c everyone buys into the idea that the current YS is the original one, which would make it very old and full of history. Which is not so, but it's how the story goes.

With any luck, A-Rod will hit four bombs but will still lose because of Jeter's 0-6 day with 3 errors.

I went to Yankee Stadium last week. I wore full Red Sox gear, but it seemed like the fans there were more sad than angry with me. I've got long hair and a big beard, and one of the fans said "The Red Sox suck and so do the Beatles" but that was about it.

How so? I said my goodbyes in 2004 and I'm curious about your observations.

It was much, much less clean than Fenway, the layout of the seats wasn't really ideal for baseball, the constant music and between-inning scoreboard shit, the white sheet metal walls that surround half of the park, the stained concrete underfoot, cramped quarters on narrow ramps, etc., etc. Every aspect of the park seemed poorly planned, poorly organized, and superficial.

That said, the new park looked incredible, at least from the outside. From the outside, the old stadium looks like something between a mall and a warehouse.

Only if you have a ticket--though I have heard reports say "the public" will be allowed on the field. But from the release I read on yankees.com, it's only for people with a ticket to tonight's elimination game.

This is very horrible, a huge part of what drove me away. Unfortunately, though, it's at almost every ML park in the country.

YS is not a great park, there's no doubt about it. But it's ridiculous to act as if it's emblematic of all things Yankee. As Allan said, it's like most parks of its era, late 70s. It's not the Temple of Greatness that Jon Sterling makes it out to be, but it's not the hell-hole you guys make it out to be either. It's so overboard.

having grown up in boston and fenway pretty much being the only ballpark i had ever been to for most of my life, i was pretty amazed by (new) YS. to someone only knowing fenway, its pretty impressive. i have only been to 3 parks (shea) so that might be a part of it. but most sox fans will just hate on it cause its the yanks. whatever.

It's funny to hear complaints about the narrow ramps. That's one of the things Yankees fans always complained about while trying to get a new Stadium. I thought it was ridiculous - like Sox fans who wanted Fenway torn down because there wasn't enough leg room.

yeah--it's not even "on the field"--it's just a warning track jaunt, much like any Fenway tour. They totally should have a day in the offseason where they let anybody in and just run amok. Or..maybe not.

To clarify: I've got no complaints about how I was treated by fans, security, management, or employees. Although they did make my friend throw away his bookbag, because they were afraid people would be trying to steal chairs and stuff since it was closing. They gave him a much bigger, opaque white plastic bag to hold his stuff in. Seemed kind of silly.

I still have the flier that was mailed to me talking all about the "new" Fenway complete with moclup design and quotes from famous people calling for it--including Nomar, I think. And maybe even Ted Williams, though I'd have to check. I can assure you I never bought into that. It's like, Hey, how would you like to have your favorite place destroyed? No thanks.

I can *sort of* understand why they wanted a new Fenway. Parts of it are very uncomfortable, and there certainly isn't any reason for a new park to have the columns obscuring the view, but those reasons (and I'm sure some others that are perfectly valid) don't outweigh the history and beauty of the building, at least for me.

Save Fenway Park was a pretty awesome organization. One of the reasons the old ownership was using for a new park was that a certain ramp used by people leaving the upper levels of the park wasn't totally sound for its current use.

It turns out the "current use" they were talking about was parking front office types cars on it!

Yeah, but at 19 SB, it's not an insignificant factor. He's not fast, but picks his spots well, I guess, and that ability's an asset to go along with the 53 doubles...the 205 hits. What about the 17 HRs? He's not really a power hitter, but once you get above 15 HR's or so on a year, it's something you can't ignore.

I checked his OPS. Before today, I was surprised to see it was only .868.

At the old Tiger Stadium, I also couldn't believe the poles. But man, the upper deck at that place was friggin amazing. You are right on top of the field. I guess you can't have that without those crazy poles.

here's a good one for the other old-ish people. Remember in May '88, Doerr's number 1 was retired, so McNamara had to switch to 2? Well I noticed on Baseball Almanac they only listed 1 as Johnny Mac's #. So I wrote them to correct it. The guy wrote back and said he "checked with a researcher AT the Red Sox," who said he checked his scorecards from the first and last games of that season, and they both showed McNamara wearing #1. ! You'd think this "researcher" at the very least would've known about Doerr's retired #, and that McNamara couldn't have possibly still been wearing 1! I wrote back with further proof for them, along with the suggestion that that researcher should be fired..

I'm with Redsock on the 9-game sample size. I'd imagine that the run differential would point to it being a closer season series than that, and that even run differential doesn't mean shit over 10 baseball games. Someone who can find RS/RA for team-by-team matchups and who understands stuff like standard deviation should feel free to correct me, because I'm sort of talking out of my ass.

i guess i really never noticed all the "in between inning loud crazy music" shit at the stadium, as i always do my "old man at the game with radio in ears".(not that listening to sterling is any better, some of the shot that comes out of their mouths is unfathomable).

The irony of all the between-innings (and even between-batter) music and whatnot at Yankee Stadium is that every time the Yankees are in Tampa, Sterling always goes on at great length about how obnoxious it is that there is all this loud music and other stuff going on (and not just the cowbells, which I agree can sound pretty annoying over the air). Sterling always attributes it to Tampa Bay not drawing large crowds, so they have to make it sound like something's going on, but he never explains why they also do it at a sold-out Toilet.

this is the biggest difference between Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. The fact that the scoreboard tells the Yankes fans when to cheer, while Fenway has never, ever done that. I always wonder if people who haven't been to YS can tell this from TV. If ish doesn't notice it, I fear a lot more definitely don't know.

I just wish for once a national announcer would say, "Remember viewers, you're hearing the fans here at Yankee Stadium cheering, but it's only because the scoreboard s saying "GET LOUD" and an organ is leading their cheers."

Papelbon used to be very, very exciting to watch, but it seems like he's taking even longer between pitches this year than ever before. I'm very happy we have a pitcher of his caliber on the team, but he's got to be one of the slowest workers in baseball.

and I'm not saying that nearly every other park hasn't followed Yankee Stadium's suit on the "da da da da da da...charge" crap. And even Fenway has actual recorded music now as opposed to the old days of strictly live organ, and it can get pretty loud between innings.

L: honestly, I wasn't even acting like it was their idea--though who knows, that stadium started lots of baseball trends--I'm more concerned about "Yankees do it, Red Sox don't."

I mean, Comiskey, Veeck, coulda been anybody who started playing music over loudspeakers, etc. But if the Yanks didn't start it, I'm sure they were quick to do it. I do wonder when all that started Like, the first "charge" tune. I think of that as pretty Yankee-centric, but who knows.

I never get when people complain about the baseball schedule, in terms of the way it "should" be. Lou and TC both acting like it's inexplicable that Yankee Stadium's last game won't be the last of their season. I hope the schedule makers aren't paid to make the schedule look cool. It's hard enough to make a schedule involving 30 teams playing 162 games each without having to add in stuff that would be "fitting" or whatever. (Also, them getting mad is an insult to the Mets, whose stadium is also closing.)

right, the $15! (The way I see it, if the game doesn't happen, I still walk away with a ticket to a non-existent game. Is it obvious yet that a guy like me would like having something like that way too much?)

So, basically I've picked a pretty good game to go to tomorrow night - it'll either be a party atmosphere for the day after they clinch, or the Yankees win tonight and the Red Sox win tomorrow night and they clinch it right then. Or the other two options.

So the D-Rays lose and keep my big bus motor running for another day.I had pretty much determined I was going to trade it in on a W-C microbus if we didn't pick up one today.I've always wanted a microbus anyway.

One thing I wanted to do was to go back through microfilm and see what people said when YS Jr. oopened up. Did they feel like the old park was dead? Did they object to calling it by the same name? Or did they feel it had been merely modernized?

As others have said, Wrigley. Used to be Dodger Stadium, but no longer. That's all for my experience. I'd be surprised if there were any others, since it's supposed to be part of the modern ballpark experience. Bah.

Nix, you are so lucky that you can tune it out. For me it's like an assault on my senses the entire time. In Baltimore and Cleveland you can't even talk between innings, you have to shout at the person sitting next to you to be heard. And of course it's all corporate advertising.